Dubrovnik Airline Purchases Five Jets

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) - Croatia's new charter operator Dubrovnik Airline is completing its purchase of five MD-82/83 jets from an Indonesian leasing firm ahead of the main tourist season on the Adriatic coast, company officials said on Saturday.

General Manager Zeno Singer said the company - which focuses on flying tourists from Northern and Western Europe to Dubrovnik, Croatia's best-known resort - expects to carry 180,000 passengers this year, more than double the number in its first year of operation in 2005.

Croatia is experiencing a tourist boom after 15 years of bloody wars in the Balkans, and the new operator hopes to capitalize on the influx, Singer said.

Its fleet was purchased from Aero Nusantara Indonesia, a Jakarta-based brokerage firm that specializes in leasing jets to Indonesia's rapidly expanding budget airline sector.

Air travel in the archipelagic nation, home to 220 million people, has expanded sharply since the airline industry was deregulated in 2000, with cheap fares and new destinations contributing to a 20 percent annual growth in passenger loads. Several Indonesian carriers recently placed large orders with Airbus and Boeing and are now shedding older models in preparation for the delivery of the new jets.

Singer said that the Croatian carrier ferried its fourth MD-82 to Dubrovnik on Saturday, and expected to pick up its fifth next month.

source : AOL Money News

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